Return the FF consolation game

[billhoward]

Does anybody miss the long-departed third place game on final four weekends for hockey and basketball? It's probably a goner because players and fans perhaps care exclusively about who's #1 and almost not at all about who's #1-2-3-4. It did give the beaten teams' fans some reason to stick around for championship day. Up-and-coming teams really cared about it. When Wisconsin wound up in a consolation, its fans made Boston Garden rock with the sound of "Best in the West" repeated a couple hundred times.

[djk26]

Bill,
I totally agree.  I would have loved to see a Cornell/Michigan game in 2003.  I notice that there was a 3rd place game as recently as 1989 (when a certain unnamed team won it all :-P )  

Does anyone have any idea why the consolation game was dropped?  Was it because the players/coaches/fans weren't up for it?  The game probably wouldn't be on ESPN, and I know that most of the other championship tournaments do not have 3rd place games (including squeakball, notably.)  Being that this is the NCAA, I'm sure it has something to do with money, but does anyone have more insight as to why there is no longer a consolation game?

Another reason to stage it is that the Frozen Four is supposed to be a showcase for the nation's four best teams.  Another game would at least show off these teams to local fans, even if the consolation game was not on national television.  Plus, more college hockey is never a bad thing.

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]djk26 Wrote:

Another reason to stage it is that the Frozen Four is supposed to be a showcase for the nation's four best teams.[/q]
The squeakball consolation game was certainly a showcase for Bill Bradley in 1965.

[Scersk '97]

Had there been a Cornell/Michigan game in 2003, I know that I would've stuck around for Saturday.  I've never had to watch Cornell in a consolation, but it would've probably taken the sting off enough to get me in the arena.  As it was, I couldn't be bothered to watch UHN do anything, even if they had nude cheerleaders or something.

[Beeeej]

By skipping the finals, you missed some great cheers from our vocal little "In Denial" section.

Beeeej

[Scersk '97]

I had spent Thursday night trying to buoy the spirits of some other fans who had been there all season long and were taking it a bit harder than me.  They stuck around for the activities on Friday; I bolted to the Albright-Knox Gallery.  I was tired and more depressed than I had thought I was.  Honestly, the art helped.

Faced with a choice between heading home and seeing my folks, whom I hadn't seen in a while, and watching a hockey game I wasn't really all that interested in, and which would've simply rubbed salt in a wound that was deeper than I thought, I headed home.  I seriously almost went to the game, but then had a moment of revulsion and thought better of it.  I'm OK with that decision.

[Give My Regards]

[Q]djk26 Wrote:
Does anyone have any idea why the consolation game was dropped?  Was it because the players/coaches/fans weren't up for it?[/q]

I won't swear this is accurate, but I recall hearing that in its last few years of existence, the consolation game clearly became a way for the two teams to work off their frustrations at not making the title game, i.e. a penalty-fest.  I'm thinking the '89 game may have featured a brawl or some such, after which the NCAA said "never mind".

[KeithK]

The players and coaches probably don't want to play in a meaningless consolation game.  ESPN wouldn't cover it so the NCAA wouldn't get any cash out of it.  The arena is already rented so there wouldn't be much cost to having the game if you thought people would attend - concessions might cover the cost of rink staff.  But since the people involved probably don't want to play and it's at best not going to make any money they don't play it.

A consolation game makes more sense when the fans in attendance are primarily fans of the four teams in the championship.  If I travel across country to see Cornell play in Buffalo I'd like to see them play two games regardless.  But the random HOCKEY-L fan who just likes to go to the Frozen Four doesn't need the consy to get excited about the event - he's already going to see three good hockey games.  (Not that he wouldn't mind seeing a fourth game but it's not the drawing card.)  The bigger the tournament gets and the more tickets are sold to fans who aren't just there for their team the less need to have the consolation.

[billhoward]

I suggested "it's become meaningless if you're not playing for the title" and others suggested "meaningless games became penalty/slugfests" and "when the tournament becomes a spectacle for fans not from the four final schools, they don't care" makes as much or more sense.